Collective Punishment
Via Juan Cole, we learn that the Iraqi president is now protesting at the American's use of 'collective punishment' against Iraqi cities. Cole notes this is possibly a war crime, but there's nothing new there I suppose.We learnt last week from the Iraqi government that US forces are killing two times as many civilians as even the murderous and repugnant terrorists who claim to be a 'resistance'.
At least Blair has started apologising. He apologised for the faulty intelligent, he almost apologised for his faulty judgement, and he was meant to (but didn't) apologise for 'dividing the country'.
Instead we have to trust him. As Catherine Bennett said:
The doctrine of Blairite fallibility holds that, even if he makes a mistake which has the most grievous, bloody consequences, it does not matter because his war does not belong not to our own, sublunary realm of acts and consequences, crimes and punishments, ill-considered parking and inevitable parking tickets - it sprang, instead, from Mr Blair's private moral universe, which is guided by revelation and faith.
In a way you can almost feel sorry for him. Bennett's explanation for his conduct is probably part of the reason for the fiasco we are now in, though I still prefer David Runciman's suggestion that he did it because he is prepared to bet large amounts on a safe bet, and he thought joining the Americans in a foreign policy escapade would always be a safe bet.
That it wasn't he now appears incapable of realising. Timothy Garton-Ash notes today
The tragedy is that Blair's tactical misjudgment, in adopting the Jeeves approach to Bush's policy on Iraq, has imperilled his own strategic vision.
And argues that he must now distance himself from this incompetent and disatrous Administration, before it is too late.
Sadly, at least for Blair and the Iraqi people, it be might already.
posted by Matthew @ 9/30/2004 07:28:00 AM
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